Alessandro Innocenti

Test your political orientation

Here’s a simple question that can tell us an awful lot about you. Is this a circle? If you said: “Yeah, sure, close enough,” then you are probably politically liberal, and strongly support the idea of government aid for the homeless and unemployed. You are also likely to support same-sex marriage and legalisation of marijuana for recreational use. If you said: “No, of course not,” then you are probably politically conservative, and strongly support the idea of protecting the rights of business owners and having a strong military. You are likely to take a particularly dim view of illegal immigration, and would come down strongly on even relatively low-level crime, such as drug use and prostitution. ….[READ]

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One thought on “Test your political orientation”

Such simplistic political tests insult the intelligence of anyone, left or right, who takes any issue seriously. Whether one is “liberal” or “conservative” depends on the situation to which one is responding. So does the answer to the circle question. If it’s a game of lawn darts, sure, that’s a circle. But if it’s a geometric standard by which to test a mathematical theorem, no, that shape is not a true circle. Arrogant people like to ascribe their opponents’ views to some emotional deficiency such as “rigidity” or “self-indulgence” but the real reasons for beliefs have to do with the evidence people see that makes up the world they believe they live in. For example, attitudes about immigration tend to vary according to proximity to borders.